Top down approach

Question 1

What is offender profiling?

Answer 1

The idea you can make assumptions about characteristics of an offender by careful analysis of crimes they commit aand evidence at the crime scene.

Question 2

How does the top down approach work?

Answer 2

Top down appraoch is american it works by creating pre- existing catagories of offending types- orgainised/ disorganised use evidence to classify characterstics to generate a profile

Question 3

How does the top down approach work?

Answer 3

Top down appraoch is american it works by creating pre- existing catagories of offending types- orgainised/ disorganised use evidence to classify characterstics to generate a profile

Question 4

top down approach

What are the four stages of constructing a profile

Answer 4

1. data assmilisation
2. crime scene classification
3. crime scene reconstruction
4. profile generation

Question 5

What is 3 evaluation points of the top down approach

Answer 5

1. can not apply, only used for serious crimes
2. Evidence does not support disorganised killer, canter studied 100 murders couldnt find one disorganised killer
3. Based on outdates models of personality, alison et al driven by dispostional factors not external factors. Suggests that all criminal acts stay the same

Question 6

What key word is associated w top down approach

Answer 6

Generate hypothesis
Pre established typologies

Question 7

What is a limitation of the top down approach?

Answer 7

• Based on outdated rules of personality: suggests that all behaviour remains the same within many contexts/ consistent. Statis model is naive in representing and classifying crimes and may miss over lap. This decreases validity

Question 8

What is contridictory evidence about disorganised and organised criminals

Answer 8

Canter used smallest space- computer- to analyse data from 100 murders in the USA. 39 characteristics of organised/ disorginsed. Found a clear organised tyoe not disorganised. Reduces internal validity.